City to purchase new sweeper, bucket truck

0

FAIRBORN — The City of Fairborn will soon own a new street sweeper and bucket truck after council authorized the purchase March 5 during the regular meeting.

The need for a new street sweeper arose in November 2017 when the previous unit caught fire. Street and Equipment Maintenance Superintendent Sean Sink said the investigation concerning what caused the fire is still underway. However, none of the initial investigative reports have indicated that the sweeping mechanism caused the fire.

“We’re going to do our diligence and stay in contact with the folks who are doing the fire investigation,” Sink said. “It’s out of our hands, but they’re still going to keep us in the loop because they know we want to know what we can do if there’s anything.”

In the meantime, the city has been operating with a rental sweeper unit. Sink has been seeking a new street sweeper that allows maneuverability and is the ideal size as it completes jobs around the city. He said many of the units were either too large or too small. Council authorized the purchase of a new sweeper for approximately $244,000, which will be covered by insurance. It will take 90-100 days to get the new sweeper into action.

“If there’s a dealer recall that comes down the pike, we can get that taken care of,” Sink said. “We also know some things we can add into our daily inspection process that could have potentially caused the issue that we can keep our eyes on.”

The city is also replacing its 37-year-old bucket truck. The unit was bought used as a former DP&L truck that “has served the city well,” Sink said. However, frame damage has recently taken the truck out of commission. Costs to fix the frame damage is not cost effective, according to Sink.

“We hang a lot of banners, decorations, traffic signals, tree work, storm damage-related items, IT support, PD cameras and even building maintenance,” Sink said. “We use that thing for everything we could possible use it for. It’s not equipment that’s out on a daily basis, but we need to have it ready to go on a minute’s notice.”

Costs for the bucket truck will be split between a number of city departments who have used the former truck in the past. It will be used and will not exceed $30,000, according to Sink.

“If we could get something that at least has an extra 10 feet in reach, that would make the ability to service some various lights around town more easily serviced, the IT department being able to reach some … monitoring equipment at the treatment plant would be easier instead of having to rent something, the installation of cameras for the Fairborn Police Department — various things. That extra 10 feet would be huge,” Sink said, adding that a jib boom would be helpful on the new unit as well.

“We’ve located several, we’ve just been waiting on the correct weather and work conditions so we can take [people who use the truck] and put this thing through its paces so we know exactly what we’re getting,” Sink said. “We’re trying to look local.”

By Whitney Vickers

[email protected]

Contact Whitney Vickers at 937-502-4532.

No posts to display